


A Finer Chain

by ignitesthestars



Category: Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo, The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Angst, Drama, Drug Use, F/F, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-01 15:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5211284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignitesthestars/pseuds/ignitesthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Parem falls to the hands of those who have no qualms about mass producing it, and Ravka must decide how to face this new threat. Do they force their own Grisha to take it in order to defend themselves? Or do they find another way?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The King of Ravka is in hiding.

It’s becoming something of an unfortunate habit. But when the alternative is sitting in a throne room and waiting for someone to walk through the walls and stab you, going on the run doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. Dramatic last stands make for a good exit, but Nikolai isn’t ready to leave the world yet.

Neither is politics, it seems. On more than one occasion, he’s wished he could have left his council behind. What was the point in being an absolute monarch if you still had to listen to the nattering of men more afraid for their own skin than the concept of Ravka - of the world - falling into chaos?

“We have the  _parem_ ,” one of them was blustering now. “And we have Grisha working on a cure around the clock. Sooner or later they’re going to hit on an answer - unless you don’t have faith in your own people, Nazyalensky?”

Nikolai resists the urge to groan. It wouldn’t be especially kingly. Zoya’s returning smile is all white teeth and death. When she speaks, it’s with the sweet tone of poison.

“I’ll tell you what, minister. I’ll force my people to take  _parem_ , when you take a dose first.”

A new shade of red is invented on the minister’s face that day.

They argue on - and on, and on. All the while, Nikolai feels the thick coils of fear turning around them, strangling. If he listens very carefully to the gaps between all the yelling, the Darkling’s chuckle lingers.

 _This would not have happened if I had been king_.

“No one will be forcing anyone to take  _parem_.”

Silence, except for his head. Does anyone else notice the way Zoya’s shoulders slump? The terror of Fjerdan nightmares is paler than usual, for all that Genya Safin has seen to the circles under her eyes.

“Your majesty–”

“Any Grisha on the drug is bad enough. A resentful Grisha? They might be unable to think about much beyond the next fix, but we aren’t the only source of  _parem_. I won’t have the might of the Second Army turned against Ravka when some Fjerdan promises revenge.”

It’s paper thin and he can see the disgust on some of their faces already. Saints, even Nikolai isn’t sure he’s doing the right thing. He’s seen Grisha under the influence. They might turn traitor for more  _parem_ , but they’ll come back for the same. The idea of playing master with the drug for a leash turns his stomach, but so does the idea of seeing Ravka fractured and overrun.

If that happens, it won’t matter who’s holding the leash. The Grisha will all be slaves.

“How does your majesty propose we defend the nation against this new threat, then?”

It’s Zoya again, to murmurs of surprise around the table. He looks at the set of her jaw, the bottomless depths of those blue eyes, and knows she will kill him before she lets him force her people to devastation. Him, and anyone else who tries to force her hand, Ravka be damned. She might be a patriot - and more patriotic than any of the rest of the men in this room. But she is a Grisha before that.

He remembers a girl, powerful and arrogant, who begged for the Darkling’s favour with everything in her. He thinks that girl is probably dead. The same as the boy who had thrown on identities like they were new suits, who had run off to become a privateer without a second thought.

“We are not defenceless,” he reminds the table. “The advantage of letting Grisha work unhindered is that, shockingly, they are a great deal more creative. This isn’t the first time we’ve faced down impossible odds with the right attitude.”

They aren’t convinced. He isn’t, either, which is why he keeps talking. He forces himself to keep his gaze on the combat arm of the triumvirate. She deserves to have his eye contact when he speaks again.

“I have also learned,” he continues, swallowing the bitterness, “that Grisha, like anyone, will fight harder for what they love than what they fear. Which is why I will be asking for volunteers.”

The table tenses. All eyes turn to Zoya, as though waiting for her to explode. They really have learnt nothing.

She closes her eyes, the dark sweep of lashes over her cheeks somehow more dignified than all the generals’ medals in the room. She folds her hands neatly in front of her, pale against the dark grain of the wood. Her shoulders, Nikolai notes, are stiff again.

“All right,” she says. They at least have the courtesy to pretend they can’t hear the self-loathing in her voice. “But on one condition. If Grisha are to be harnessed, it will be Grisha who hold the reins. I won’t have  _otkazat’sya_  with that kind of power over us.”

The word us sends a tremor of unease through Nikolai, as the rest of the table erupts into protest. Grisha handlers will be susceptible. Grisha handlers will be too sympathetic. He forces himself to look away from Zoya as he deals with this new issue, not wanting to give the impression of favouritism.

But he can’t shake the look of awful determination on her face, long after he retires for the evening.


	2. Chapter 2

Genya handles the  _parem_ gloved and masked, and tries not to think about what will happen if it gets under her skin.

Nearby, David bends over his own dose - studying, not considering. There’s no question about whether or not their brightest mind will sacrifice himself on the pyre of necessity, and Genya can at least take some small comfort in that. David is needed, not only for the cure, but for their other defenses. They can’t risk a mind like his on addiction when there is a new threat requiring new methods to fight it.

Genya, though?

Genya has always been expendable.

The sweetness on the air steals her focus, drives her curiosity. Reports from Nina Zenik - who is alive, the little idiot - indicate that rebuilding flesh is nothing, even to a Heartrender made for tearing it apart. If a Grisha on _parem_ can heal gunshots, what could Genya - who knows her ruined body better than the most basic of compounds - do with it?

It is not a thought of a leader, but no one has ever accused Genya of being selfless. She watches the burnt orange powder, bright enough to glow under the skylights overhead. She isn’t a fighter, but the function of the drug isn’t to make Grisha  _stronger_. It allows them to dig deeper, through the tiniest cracks in the Small Science, breaking it down into the most infinitesimal of pieces.

Alina Starkov had taken the head off a mountain on that thought alone. Not for the first time, she wonders what if. But Alina spent herself on the last war, has forged herself into something new entirely. Genya…is different. In some ways, better.

She stares at the parem. It stares back at her.

In some ways, the same. It would not be the first time she had poisoned herself for something greater, after all.

“If you want to, I’ll take care of you.”

She jumps, tearing her gaze away from the drug to David. He remains bent over his work - they’re trying to isolate what it is, exactly, about  _parem_ that makes it so addictive. David has always been single-minded, but as the months have passed, she’s noticed that he’s always aware of her in some way. It’s gratifying, yes, but it makes her heart ache at the same time.

“And people accuse you of not being observant,” she murmurs. “I…don’t know if I will.”

His shoulders stiffen. He’d been hoping for a denial, she realises belatedly. But David knows her too well for that; she’s a scientist the same as he is, and she has always tested her theories on herself. Slowly, he nods, his head bobbing up and down too many times.

“Other people are going to tell you not to.”

“Other people aren’t in a position to turn down any Grisha willing to do this to themselves. Even if it’s just a Tailor.”

He looks up then, eyes flashing. “You’re not  _just_ anything.”

Her laugh tastes sweet in another way, lighter. She leans over to kiss him, meaning for it to be a light thing; his hand curls into her  _kefta_ and keeps her there.

“You’re in the middle of an experiment,” she murmurs.

“I can count seconds and kiss you at the same time,” he mumbles back.

“Then I must not be doing it right.”

They stay there for a moment, foreheads pressed together until he counts the right amount of seconds and returns to his work with a flustered air. Genya could return to her own project, but stays where she is for the moment.

“My mind would work faster,” she says, watching his hands. “While I was high, at least. I’d be useful.”

“You’re useful now.”

Her mouth twists even further than the scarring encourages. “But not too useful to risk.”

His hand trembles. She blinks at it, taken aback and touched at the same time. It still takes her by surprise at times, the depths of caring this brilliant, idiot boy has for her. “What if it’s not about being useful?” he says in a rush. “What if it’s about being important? What if I don’t want to watch it eat away at you? What if we don’t find the cure in time?”

 _What if I don’t?_  They both hear it, even if he doesn’t say it. David takes things apart and he puts things back together, but he might not be able to fix this. This time, she might break herself irrevocably.

“I love you,” Genya says, and the simple truth in the words rings between them. It is its own kind of balm, to hear her own voice say the words without any fear of rejection. “David, I love you. But this isn’t your choice, anymore than it’s mine to make for the  _Corporalki_ , or Nikolai’s to make for all of us.”

He swallows. She watches his throat work, before he nods and sets down his tools. “Like I said.” He stares at his hands. “I’ll look after you. If you decide to do it.”

She thinks of Nina Zenik, the bright-faced little girl who somehow became a woman strong enough to overcome the first dose of  _parem_. If Genya goes down this path, there will be no such hope for her. She will take it until the end. There will be a cure, or there will be death.

She brushes another kiss over David’s cheek, and returns to her own work.

It’s not the hardest decision she’s ever had to make.


	3. Chapter 3

Zoya is used to being alone.

She has dim memories of this not being the case. Unsurprisingly, she had been a beautiful child, and beautiful children never wanted for attention. The tendency for things to tip over in her presence had been laughed off, until a gust of wind had sent a less fortunate child sailing into the river and it wasn’t funny anymore.

The child had lived, but even those most enamoured with Zoya’s cherubic face and perfect colouring had found other places to be when her parents carried her around, after that.

 _Grisha_ , they had whispered, and she had pulled the name on like armour.

She had no need for friends at the Little Palace. If she was to be Grisha, she would be the best at being Grisha. Of course, there was no matching the Darkling, but to be acknowledged by him above all others? She would have been singular. Breaking Alina Starkov’s ribs had seemed like such a small thing in the face of what the other girl had taken from her.

The only thing that had remained the same after her fall from grace was her solitude.

Zoya could make a list. But she has better things to do than sit in a room on a mountain and muse about the past. She pours over maps and dispatches, reports from her people and those that have been passed on to her by–

Someone knocks on the door. The sound is muffled, softer than a bare knuckle would have dragged out.

“Do I look like I have time for a chat?”

“Seeing as there’s a door between us, I can’t say I’m sure what you look like.” A pause, as the king of Ravka considers his words. “Other than beautiful, of course.”

Zoya snorts, making a hooking motion with her hand. The air curls at her command, and the door opens. “Nice save.”

“Never let it be said that I failed at complimenting a woman who deserved it.” He eases into the room, shuts the door behind him.

Zoya doesn’t give her body permission to sag, but it does so anyway. She drops into the chair behind her desk, flicking a hand to indicate she’ll allow him to sit as well. He hesitates for a moment, and she knows that whatever he’s about to say, she isn’t going to like it.

“I thought you would be with Genya.”

On rare occasions, Zoya wishes she wasn’t always right. “No, you did not. And if you are here to guilt trip me into doing so, you can stand up again.”

“She’s your co-commander.” But he doesn’t sound judgmental. Curious maybe, but with the weight of the world tugging his tone down.

“Genya Safin and I have spent more of our lives hating each other than working together.” Zoya lifts a report, scans it. They are doing well to the north, or at least holding their own. The Fjerdans might have  _parem_ , but so does Ravka. Their experience of utilising Grisha makes them a force to be reckoned with, even if their volunteers are less in number than Fjerdan conscripts.

“Ah.” Nikolai crosses one leg over the other. “So you’re allowing her her dignity.”

Zoya snorts, setting the report aside. The note at the bottom mentions that Adrik and the others are requiring more frequent doses to keep them stable. She earmarks it to go to Research when she’s done. “What do you want, Nikolai?”

“Don’t take it.”

She pauses, one hand hovering over paper. The careful print on the page suggests it’s from Nina, who is lucky Zoya didn’t strangle her on the spot when they finally caught up again. Of course, the fact that the girl had made it possible for Ravka to get its hands on  _parem_ once the rest of the world had access helped. The giant hulking Fjerdan at her back had not.

“I don’t take orders from you,  _Sobachka_.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I  _am_ the king.”

“Yes, of a fractured nation beset on all sides. Show me another Grisha who can lead the Second Army as well as I can–”

“I can show you at least one.”

“Genya is splitting her time between the cure and agony. David splits his between the cure, research, and looking after Genya.”

“Whereas you have a heart of ice, and are unaffected by all of this.”

“Mark today as the miraculous day an  _otkazat’sya_  displayed some modicum of power. I didn’t know you read minds.”

Nikolai leans forward, hazel eyes intense under the chill light streaming through the overhead windows. Outside, there is white, and there is blue. The king’s mountain base is quite up to the standard it was before the Darkling got his hands on it, but it will do. They might be facing an enemy that can - amongst other things - walk through walls. But if they don’t know where the walls are, there’s nothing to walk through.

“You’re feeling guilty.”

“I take it back. And you were doing so well.”

“Your people are killing themselves and worse to fend off this latest catastrophe, and you’re stuck safely in a mountain because you’re too important to risk.”

She should just kick him out. Cocky, arrogant bastard that he is. But there’s none of that in his tone now, which is maybe why she allows him to stay. “I’ve been in the field,” she points out. “We regained Os Alta because I was in the field. Grisha aren’t idiots, we know where we’re best served. And with Genya taking the  _parem_ , our people know that their leadership is willing to make the same sacrifices we ask of them.”

“So why do you have a dose sitting in your drawer?”

The stupid thing is, she doesn’t see it coming. She should have - this is Nikolai. The word  _privacy_ is a gentle suggestion to the man at best. For a moment, they just look at each other. She considers kicking him out again, but that feels too much like an admission of weakness. Except Zoya has never made a habit of lying to herself; a frustrated noise escapes her, as she admits (internally) that the King of Scars may be familiar with making difficult decisions.

She sits back, crossing one leg over the other in an imitation of his posture. “You’re an ass.”

“Now I’m feeling guilty.” She waits for him to press again, but he doesn’t, seemingly content to let her take her time. There’s the arrogance, she thinks dryly. He doesn’t appear to have any doubts that she’ll speak.

“I am,” she starts slowly, “the most powerful Grisha we have in our arsenal. To watch us take loss after loss, and to be the weapon not being used to its full capacity - yes, I have considered taking the drug, all right?” And because this is Nikolai - not just a man, not just a king, but a boy she is trying to save the world with, she goes on. “It would be easier to take it, I sometimes think, than to not.”

The words sit between them, heavy in the suddenly thick silence. He doesn’t question her, doesn’t prompt her to explain. He doesn’t have to. He knows.

To be a weapon is easy, in the end. To be the one deciding where it points, and what must be sacrificed to use it?

That is the hard part. The ugly truth is, Zoya will give Genya her dignity, yes. But deeper, she is terrified of what she might say to her co-commander, who she might have hated for most of her life, who she now considers a friend.  _You took the easy way out_  rings true in her heart. _You left me to make all of the impossible decisions while you waste away into a husk of nothingness._

_You left me alone._

She thinks Nikolai’s hand twitches. Towards her? Maybe. There is an impulse in her that wants to twitch back. This business of caring, she decides, is exhausting. It had been so much easier to remain aloof.

Before either of them can decide to reach for the other, there’s another knock at the door. This one is sharp, maybe even hurried.

 _Definitely hurried_ , Zoya thinks sourly, as the door opens before she can give permission. Tamar stands in the frame, silhouetted by the shadow of the corridor. The lighting is not up to scratch yet.

“Please,” she drawls. “Come in.”

Normally, Tamar would deadpan something back, even in the middle of this latest crisis. But the other woman’s expression is grim, even drawn, and the look she gives the king holds none of the warmth Zoya is used to.

“Tolya has returned,” she says, and there’s a reckless gleam in her gold eyes as she glances at Zoya that has her listening intently. Whatever she’s about to say next is information she’s supposed to keep to herself. “From Keramzin.”

Nikolai’s expression doesn’t change. Zoya can sense his internal wince anyway, as a wave of realisation crashes over her in the wake of that single word.

 _I can show you at least one_.

“You son of a bitch,” she growls, slamming her fist on the desk.

Nikolai closes his eyes, new lines etching themselves into his face. “I doubt,” he says softly, “that you’ll find anyone to disagree with that.”


	4. Chapter 4

Mal knows it's coming.

They have made a life together. It's a quiet life, but Mal flatters himself that it is a satisfying thing. There are more smiles than tears at Keramzin, and if there is a hole in both of their chests where power used to sit, they have more than enough love to compensate.

Until _parem._

“Maybe the world won't fall apart,” Alina murmurs, when the letter is thrown in the fire and all traces of their connection to Grisha are burned.

Mal rises an eyebrow at her. She smirks. A week later, Os Kervo is under siege. The king stays in Os Alta right up until the triumvirate foil an assassination attack by the skin of their teeth. Three of the most powerful Grisha the world has ever known, and they defeat a single wall-walker by the skin of their teeth.

Nikolai goes into hiding. Mal and Alina very carefully don't talk about it, because the walls have ears (and other appendages) and the last thing they want is to turn the war's attention to Keramzin.

Alina paints. She tries her hand at baking, and doesn't cause the place to burn down all over again. She tugs children into her lap and whispers stories to them as the sun sinks below the horizon, casting strange shadows on her face.

Mal knows it's coming. She holds him tighter at night, limbs tangled together. Her fingers trace the scar over his heart. Her mouth follows, and he curls his hand under her chin, drawing her up until their breath tangles together as well.

“You don't have anything to apologise for.” He squeezes his eyes shut, pressing his forehead to hers.

 _Yet_ lingers in the silence between them. Not from Mal - from the way she kisses him, all teeth and tongue and harsh, gasping pants that swallow the promises she can't make, and he will never ask her to. Her fingers dig into him and it would be easy to respond in kind, to meet violent desperation with more of the same.

He cradles her head. Strokes her hair, draws his hand in long, languorous strokes down her body under every part of her shudders under his touch. And when she buries her face in his shoulder, he whispers into her ear--

_I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you._

* * *

Nadia comes to Keramzin.

More specifically, Nadia comes to Keramzin with Adrik, and Adrik comes with a supply of _parem._

“No.” Alina holds her hands up like she can physically ward them off. Mal’s eyes are drawn, inexorably to her wrists. Bare, now. Adrik has done something with the air, made it impossible good people to eavesdrop. “Absolutely not.”

“Zoya said you'd say that.” There is a brightness and a brittleness to Nadia that Mal understands. The kind that comes when someone you love is going to get themselves killed. “She also said to tell you that if you wanted to give orders, you should have stayed the Sun Summoner.”

It wouldn't have been funny from anyone else, and Nadia probably would have kept it to herself. But the four of them share an eyeroll at Zoya’s expense as Alina's lack of power unpacks itself and airs, no longer an awkward lump between them.

“I'm not the Sun Summoner anymore,” Alina points out. “I can think of a thousand more useful places for you - for _that_ to be.”

“Do those thousand places have Grisha children?”

It's only after three pairs of eyes turn to look at him that Mal realises the words come from him. There's a naked desperation in the set of Alina's jaw that just about brings him to his knees; he smells a sweetness in the air.

“We sent them to Nikolai,” she whispers. “They're safe.”

“Not everyone's obvious about it,” Adrik offers awkwardly.

Mal and Alina know that better than everyone.

“There are always more orphans.”

He knows it's coming. He hadn't expected to invite it to sleep under their roof.

* * *

“It'll kill me,” she says that night, head tucked under his chin, palm on his chest. “ _Otkazat'sya_ can't survive _parem_.”

This is the nakedness she is reluctant to let even Mal see. There is a wealth of pain in her, all balled up in that word. _The abandoned_. A part of him wants to tell her this is the way things are now. That she had been wonderful and terrible and so bright it was impossible to look her in the eye. That he is glad she can’t burn herself on the pyre of the world. That she is not abandoned, not so long as his ribs remain wrapped in his chest.

He hates that part of him. It is a stupid and selfish thing, but they all have stupid and selfish things curled up inside them. The time has long since passed for self-flagellation. He presses his lips to the top of her head, and pulls her closer.

His heart is in his throat.

“It might not,” he whispers.

She is his heart.

* * *

They send an amplifier.

It’s not even clear which _they_ it is. Fjerda, Kerch, Shu Han - reports have it that _parem_ has made it as far as Novya Zem, although Mal’s not sure what Ravka’s done lately to induce the wrath of the Zemini. Knowing Ravka, there’s probably something.

But there’s no time for knowing anything now, because a storm is rippling across the horizon in the middle of summer and children are screaming and there is a look of terrible determination in Adrik and Nadia’s face.

Mal doesn’t ask if he’s sure. Alina is already herding students, and he gives his attention to the staff as his ears pop and the two Squallers head outside, passing a sweet-smelling pouch between them.

“I won’t make you fight,” he tells the other _otkazat’sya._ Not all of them have gathered - there are a few adult shrieks rising from the orderly lines Alina is directing down into the basement. One student has caught the drapes on fire. He can’t see who it is, but he knows that he will kill and he will die before he sees any one of them a wrecked and strung out husk. “But you’re making the decision now. You know where the rifles are. Get one and fight, or join the children in the basement.”

“But what if there’s a Durast?” one of the staff protests.

Lightning arcs overhead. Mal glances up at the sky, back at the staff. “I think we’d know by now.”

They scatter. Fully two thirds of them head for the basement, although Mal notes that at least some of them take over Alina’s job as shepherd.

“We didn’t hire them for their bravery,” she says dryly, as they run for the weapons. There’s a lopsidedness to her gait; a low _boom_ sounds outside and a wash of rain consumes the manor, but Mal has eyes only for Alina.

“What is it? Alina?”

She grimaces, tossing him a rifle, passing them out to the others. “I’m fine.”

“That’s not the same as ‘it’s nothing’.”

Mal stations everyone in door frames, strictly defensive. There’s not much they’ll be able to do if the Squaller - and it has to be a Squaller, with the change in air pressure - takes the roof off, but the longer they keep the gunpowder dry, the better. He’s hideously aware that their main hope rests with the Grisha.

There’s a figure in the sky, and his own power might be gone, but he can still hear the shift in Alina’s breathing. Not fast with fear, but a slow, measured thing. He glances at her, her face transfixed, her hands trembling on the rifle. He curses, fires off a shot, takes no satisfaction in the scream of rage that echoes across the air as the bullet finds its home in flesh.

“Alina!” he cries, as a new wind roars out of nowhere. Adrik’s remaining arm is thrust into the sky and even from this distance, Mal can see the tremors wracking his body.

“ _Focus_ ,” she snaps back, squeezing off her own shot. It between her aim and the raging wind, it goes wide. But the sound and the sight is a direction, jerks the enemy Grisha’s attention towards her for long enough that Adrik literally steals the wind from under her. She drops like a stone and Nadia gestures, a wide, sweeping motion that shoves her off course before she can steal it back.

The amplification is working on them as well, and there’s something else at work on Adrik. A voice in the back of Mal’s head whispers that they’ve made themselves a target now, worthy of protection. If they survive this, next time they might send more than--

 _The amplification is working on them as well._ Inevitably, inexorably, his head snaps back to his wife. He can see it now, the strain in her. Not to hold herself together; to hold herself _back_.

The roof groans in protest. The whole manor shakes. Nadia screams as the battle of nature throws her back into a tree, knocks her unconscious. Adrik’s roar echoes across the countryside, carried by the raging storm.

And it’s all Alina can do to stop herself from running into the middle of it.

* * *

The fight ends when Adrik yanks the air right out of the enemy Grisha’s lungs.

* * *

The battle continues when they have to talk him down from searching his sister’s unconscious body for the rest of the drug. Tremors wrack his body, eyes wide, pupils blown. The very air trembles with every step he takes.

“I don’t have it,” Nadia murmurs, as she rouses. She has eyes only for her brother, and she probably shouldn’t be standing but she scrambles to her feet anyway. She takes his hand, cups his cheek. “Adrik. I told you I was going to hide it. Remember? You only get it when you can’t handle it anymore.” She presses her forehead to his. He lets her. “You’re strong. I wouldn’t have let you do this if you weren’t strong.”

His laugh is the promise of a death rattle. “Always trying to control me.”

“What are big sisters for?”

* * *

They move the evidence. Make it look like Ravkan Grisha intercepted the enemy before she got to Keramzin. And the children - they send the ones revealed as Grisha off to the mountains, in ones and twos.

A Durast comes.

A Durast is killed. But so are some members of staff. The children, blessedly, survive, although at what cost Mal can’t be sure.

Alina doesn’t talk about what the amplification did to her, and Mal - Saints help him, Mal is too afraid to ask.

More children come. They don’t take chances - even those who seem like they only _might_ possess the Small Science follow the others into the mountains.

An Inferni comes.

Alina doesn’t miss her shot this time. Adrik begs and pleads with his sister for more _parem_ , in shorter and shorter intervals. Nadia begins to look nearly as drawn as he does

* * *

They live in fear of a Tidemaker. But word is getting out. Centuries of mistreatment makes Grisha a rare commodity in countries that aren’t Ravka, and spending them on a prize that might not even be a prize is looking to become less and less like a good idea to their enemies. Orders come for Nadia and Adrik to range further away from Keramzin as a base. Caryeva comes under attack from the Shu Han, and the Shu Han come under attack from them.

Nadia tells Mal where the _parem_ is. Just in case.

Alina looks at him, and her eyes beg him to keep the knowledge to himself.

 _I am become a blade_ , he thinks, and wonder just who he is protecting when he does.

* * *

“I felt it,” Alina whispers into the darkness. She stands at the window, the night moonless and still. Everything in him aches to go to her, but he stays where he is, on the edge of the bed. “There’s nothing inside me, Mal. But I felt the amplification anyway.”

 _There’s nothing inside me_. A dagger to the heart hurts less, but this isn’t his pain to wallow in. It’s all her, so raw that he is too afraid to touch her, lest he hurt her even more. He drops his head instead, elbows draped over his knees, staring at his hands.

“I didn’t feel a thing,” he admits. He never has. Whatever strange abilities his first life had bought him, they hadn’t been of the Small Science. Not in the way Grisha are. Mal has always been _otkazat’sya._

Alina has always been something else.

“The war is going badly,” she tells the window, the countryside beyond it.

“I can’t tell you what choice to make, Alina.”

“Why not?” She whirls on him. “You’re my husband, aren’t you? We’re supposed to do this together. Make decisions about our life _together_.”

Guilt tastes sour in the back of his throat. “ _E’ya sta rezku_.”

“Don’t give me that. You’re more than that. You’ve always been more than that.”

He straightens then, stands. They close in on each other, stop just before touching. Maybe she’s not the only raw one here. There’s so little light in the room, but he finds her eyes anyway. They lock, a wealth of love and pain between them.

“So are you,” is all he says, and when her arms come around him, he can’t be sure who is holding who.

* * *

Tolya comes.

It’s fitting, Mal thinks, as Alina opens the door to the hulking man. It’s late summer, but the bulk of him blocks the light streaming in through the frame, casting her in shadow. Tolya had always been a true believer.

“His majesty requests the aid of the Sun Summoner,” the man rumbles. It’s a formality. Everyone in the foyer knows what is about to happen; the certainty sticks to all of them.

Alina glances back at Mal, just once. Brown eyes scrape his face, searching for something. All he can do is love her, and maybe that’s enough, or maybe it’s not. Whatever the answer, she finds what she’s looking for. She turns away.

Her hand is pale as she stretches it up to Tolya, but the man is kneeling before it reaches him. Her fingers hover in the air for a moment, caught in the light. She doesn’t tremble now.

“All right,” she says softly. Stoops, presses a kiss to Tolya’s brow. “Let’s go.”


	5. Chapter 5

Tolya will take _parem_.

Tamar doesn't need to ask. She knows before he leaves; he will go where the Sun Summoner goes.

It's not that she is any less dedicated, any less a true believer. She will think the word _Sankta_ before Alina's name every time, include her in her prayers every morning with the dawn. If those prayers are for her friend more often than to her, she doesn't think that makes them any less holy.

But Tamar lives in the world more than her brother does. There is a myriad of excuses and explanations she could give, but at the end of the day, it all boils down to one thing.

She sees Alina. Places her fist over her heart and her arms around the other woman's shoulders. Once, she would have knelt; she is sure Tolya did. But she seeks a different sort of benediction now.

Alina hugs tight enough to steal breath. She doesn't ask her to stay. In a world with _parem_ , Tamar takes it as a blessing.

She goes to Caryeva.

Nadia takes one look at her and knows. It’s funny, because Tamar had written her off once upon a time, a pampered Second Army member who had no idea how good she’d had it. And then - when things went to shit and hope seemed to wither, Tamar had looked again at the people who had stayed. And Nadia had still been there, looking right back.

She should have known. Not all strength has to be shouted.

Her lover stands there, face pale and drawn, one hand scrubbing her face as the other hangs awkward, useless. They haven’t even hugged. “I know I’m supposed to say I support you in whatever decision you’re making here,” Nadia sniffs. “And I do, I guess. But I’m going to cry, and you’re just going to have to live with it.” 

Tamar pulls the other woman into her arms then, because in that moment, she can’t think of a single thing in the world more important. Nadia collapses in inches, her forehead folding into the crook of her neck, shoulders slumping, fingers curling into her clothes until her legs finally buckle. Tamar doesn’t hesitate, sweeping her up properly and carrying her into the house the citizens of Caryeva have given over for their saviours’ use.

“I’m not a child,” Nadia mutters, although she doesn’t make any attempts to get down.

Tamar brushes a kiss over her mouth. “I’m aware.”

Nadia’s face lights up like a beacon, and they both manage to grin at each other despite the weight of the future hanging over them both.

It comes crashing down sooner, rather than later. A dusty rattle sneaks in from the other room, tearing the moment apart. “Sis...ter…”

Nadia doesn’t even ask her to set her down. She wriggles out of Tamar’s grasp, and if her knees were weak before, it was only a different destroyed moment. She is all steal now, spine ramrod straight as she strides into the other room.

Tamar follows. What else could she do?

A creature lies on the bed. She recognises him more by what’s missing than what’s there, the scarred stump of his arm angrier than she remembers. His skin is sallow, dry and sagging at the same time. The weight has sloughed off him. She thinks of the joke Zoya would make about extreme diets, and stays silent as Nadia tends to her brother.

Something tells her that even Adrik is too far gone for humour now.

“More,” he whines, and here is a boy whose arm was torn from his body without complaint, sounding like a snivelling brat. “You...promised. Mooooore...”

“I know.” There’s no sign of tears in Nadia’s voice, but Tamar can see the tracks, wearing furrows into her cheeks. She brushes what’s left of his hair off his forehead, lank and sweaty. “I know I did. Just wait, please. A little longer.”

“I don’t want to _wait.”_ The whole house shudders with the snap, and he might be physically weak now, but Tamar abruptly understands the very real danger they’re all in right now.

Nadia doesn’t flinch. She kneels at her brother’s bedside, stroking his hair until he falls back into a fitful sleep. They both stay where they are for a moment, before Nadia lets herself tip back onto the floor, sprawling her legs out in front of her and leaning back against the bed.

Tamar crouches between her legs, cupping her jaw, tucking her hair behind her ear, smoothing a thumb over her too-prominent cheekbone. There are dark circles under her eyes. Guilt tastes sour in the back of the Heartrender’s throat.

“Alina is going to take _parem_. She might have already done so.”

Nadia snorts. “I always knew it would be religion that would take you from me.”

And Tamar kisses her then, hard and fierce and with no religion to speak of. Nadia sobs into her mouth, fingers tangling in the soft strands of her hair, clenching until it hurts. _Good_ , she thinks dizzily. It should hurt. For what she is going to do to Nadia, it should hurt.

“I love you,” she whispers. “And you deserve to live in a world where none of us have to make this kind of choice.”

“What’s the point in living in that kind of world by myself?”

Tamar doesn’t have the answer to that, so she kisses her again. Behind them, Adrik cries quietly in his sleep.

“I love you, too,” Nadia says, lips moving against lips. “And that’s why I won’t take it.”

Tamar knows that once, she would have thought that a coward’s way out. And easy excuse for avoiding the harder decision, hiding fear under the guise of comfort.

Now, she thinks of Nikolai and the self-loathing etched in his face as he watched Zoya realise just what he’d done by sending Tolya to Keramzin. She thinks of Zoya herself, pouring over reports, of the pouch of _parem_ she knows sits in the other woman’s desk. She thinks of David practically killing himself over the cure, of his precise, gentle hands seeing to Genya’s needs when he has worn himself too thin to deal with compounds any longer.

She thinks of Malyen Oretsev, and the dreadful, desperate acceptance she had seen in his gaze before she left for Caryeva.

The drug is awful. But when you are on _parem_ , the only thing you have to worry about is _parem_.

Strength is not always shouting. Tamar closes her eyes, and breathes, and nods.

“Just promise me one thing.” There is a tremble in Nadia’s voice now. Her cheeks are still wet.

“If I can.”

 _Anything_ is a fool’s promise.

“Don’t take it if it kills her.”


	6. Chapter 6

I’m not supposed to be afraid.

Not that I think anyone would begrudge me. I’m probably about to kill myself, that’s pretty terrifying by any measure of fear. But I’ve been here before. I’ve been this person before.

Fear isn’t a good look on symbols. It’s why Nikolai spins his exhaustion into determination, why Zoya has a Corporalnik wipe all signs of it from her face. When people look to them, they see only strength.

Well. That, and great hair. It’s impossible to tell which one of them inspired _that_ particular inner voice. I swallow the terror down, and try to remember what it is to be a saint.

“I wouldn’t have asked if we weren’t desperate,” Nikolai says softly. We stand on a rebuilt balcony, watching the clouds kiss the mountaintops. If you squint you can see a ragged peak, half-healed after some madwoman came along and sliced the top off.

Does he hear the same distant flapping of wings that I do?

“You might’ve.” There’s a roughness in my throat, a resentment. We know each other too well for me to bother hiding it. “I thought you didn’t want lies between us.”

“This quoting fixation of yours is becoming a concern.”

“Here I thought you loved it.”

His mouth ticks up. It’s not a smile, and I relent, nudging his hip with mine. Gloved hands curl tight on the railing. “I’m…”

 _Tired_ fills the gap. _Afraid_ as well, because we’re both human up here in the chill mountain air.

 _Sorry_ is there as well, and I have to fight against the urge to comfort him. I might be playing the saint, but we both know I can’t grant him absolution. I lay my hand over his anyway, the leather cool to the touch.

“A good king,” I finish. I want to tell him that I don’t blame him. That he might have saved me from the sour taste of guilt lingering in the back of my mouth for the rest of my life. That he might have saved me from walking up the damn mountain myself, from having to look at Mal when I do this and see _you volunteered_ staring back at me.

My hand twitches. And after a moment or two, his turns around, fingers threading through mind. Slowly, the leather warms.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. We leave the rest unsaid.

* * *

 

Genya is luminescent.

Of course, a lot of that probably has to do with the fever. Her whole body trembles, _parem_ a fist around her throat, shaking her like a rag doll as she works with powder and compounds that I couldn’t name in a million years. Overhanging it all is that sweet, sickly scent.

“Ruination,” she says, carefully measuring something out, “is over-rated.”

It’s like she’s reached down my throat and dragged out a laugh. I choke on it, but it comes out anyway. Her gaze lights up, with fever, with fervour, with the wicked humour I’ve always known her for. She’s wraith-like, wasting away. Her skin is as pristine as the freshly fallen snow outside, and that gleam sits in two eyes.

I’ve never seen her happier. My friend, free from the last vestiges of men who thought she was theirs to own.

“You look terrible.”

“And yet, still better than the entirety of the King’s council.” Whatever she’s doing, it makes that smell all the more pervasive. I keep finding my eyes drawn to her hands, to the materials she’s working with. “They think I’m shallow, you know.”

“You are.”

She laughs with me this time, a dry, wretched sound that haunts the air long after it fades. I would have meant it as an insult, once. A million derisive thoughts about countless other girls for liking things that I would have liked too, if I thought they’d make me look any good. That Alina seems so far away now.

I don’t miss her.

“Oh, well. If it would have made me a better person to take the _parem_ and not heal myself with it in the process, I’m glad to be terrible.” The trembling in her hand increases, until the contents of her beaker looks to be in danger of spilling over. She sighs, setting it down and scraping a hand through her hair. It’s lank and drenched with sweat, and the deep, rusty colour of dried blood. “I’m working on refining it.”

It has the air of an admission to it. And I know Genya has never believed in saints or religion or that I was anything other than another girl with a burden to bear, but she looks at me for the same reassurance everyone else does. Saint or not, I’ve learnt that a person can do almost anything so long as someone else tells them it’s okay.

“You mean…”

“Making it more effective.”

The gears in my brain that know how to work through this sort of give and take are rusty, slow to get going. You let so many people die, so so many more people can live. You risk a friend’s life to save a nation.

You make a drug more powerful, so it kills the people addicted to it slower. “Good,” I tell her, and watched the tension unknot itself from her shoulders, as much as it can with the tremors that wrack her slight frame. “That buys us all time.”

Except for me, because I am not a Grisha any longer. And there’s a voice inside me that whispers _what if what if what if_ , in the space that aches every time I’m near an amplifier. And there’s a part of me that looks at Mal and the children and the life we have made for ourselves at Keramzin, and thinks, _who cares?_

I care. It’ll all be ashes, if we don’t put an end to this new war. So why can I taste the ash now, thick on the back of my tongue?

“It’s not - going to kill you.”

I startle, staring down at my friend. She has to force each word through her teeth; her jaw won’t unlock. Her fingers have curled into fists, and won’t unclench.

“Genya--”

She makes me a smile. She’s always been good at giving those away, but this one means something. “Not - because you’re a saint.”

“Then why?” I whisper, because I need this. A person can do almost anything, so long as someone else tells them it’s okay.

“Because you’re a Grisha, Alina.”

* * *

 

“This is going to kill you.”

“Nice office.”

“ _Alina Starkov_. If you think I’m going to stand for having the death of the bloody Sun Summoner marring my historical record, you’ve got another think coming.”

“I’m not _the_ Sun Summoner anymore,” I point out to Zoya Nazyalensky, and _oh_ , those words taste a lot more bitter than I’d meant.

She notices. She rolls her eyes, waving her hand. “Amateurs. It is not the same.”

I swallow. “That sounds suspiciously like a compliment.”

“Don’t make me regret it.”

“Have you noticed that you’ve gotten about ten times more maternal since starting this job?”

I expect her to deny it, to snap back something cutting and familiar, to fall back into familiar rhythms.

She snorts, and says nothing. And maybe I should leave it, but saints, when did Zoya ever leave well enough alone? I grin, perching on the edge of her desk.

“You like me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“If anyone’s ridiculous right now, it’s not me.”

“ _I’m_ not the one planning on taking a drug that has a high possibility of killing me, because some idiot king doesn’t have any faith in his soldiers!”

I didn’t think it was possible, but here we are and there Zoya is, looking vaguely embarrassed after that particular outburst. But her chin juts out and her hands are steady on her hips, and she--

She looks like a queen.

“That’s not why he did it. You know that’s not why.”

“You were a Grisha. That puts you under my purview. He should have consulted me.”

“I don’t - I don’t think he wanted anyone else to have to bear the guilt. If it goes bad.”

Blue eyes scrape over me, evaluating. That’s just the way it is with Zoya; there’s always a standard, visible or not, that you live up to or suffer. Sometimes, you live up to it _and_ suffer. I’m pretty sure she’s not about to break my ribs this time, though.

“Guilt isn’t a present,” she says finally. “You don’t get to hand it out and keep it back based on your whims.”

If we’re getting metaphorical, I think, guilt is a disease. I’ve infected everyone around me.

“Well,” I say slowly, not looking away from her. “I’m not a Grisha now. So whatever choices I’ve made, they’re mine.”

“You’re an idiot, Starkov.”

“Takes one to know one.”

* * *

 

I want him to tell me not to do it.

Three years ago, he would have. And three years ago, I would have told him where to stick it, probably. I had a responsibility, there was no one else, Ravka needed me--

And I wanted the power.

I still want the power. The politics can go screw themselves, to be honest, but the power - saints, I miss it. I crave the warmth in my chest, the dizzying dance of sunlight through my fingertips, the surety that comes with knowing I can _do_ something. That I’m useful. That I have meaning.

I don’t know if I’m doing this for Ravka, or for me. And that’s the terrifying part. More than the threat of death, it’s the idea that I might leave behind the man that I love, the _life_ that I love, for something that I spent half the time hating anyway. That, of all the things in the world I’d risk death for, this is what it’s come down to.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

His voice is soft. All of him is soft, his arm wrapped around me, cradling to him. The last time I was a saint in this place, he wouldn’t let himself touch me. Now, it’s like we can’t get close enough. I’d crawl inside him, if that wasn’t more than a little bit disturbing.

“You wouldn’t like it,” I tell his chest, tracing aimless patterns over his sleep-shirt, the scar underneath it. Laughter vibrates under my fingertips.

“I don’t have to like it, Alina.”

Just for a moment, I let myself enjoy the sound. We’re back in Keramzin, slurring sleepily about some antics one of the children have gotten up to that day. We’re tangled up in each other, and I am happy.

“I love you,” I blurt.

He closes his eyes. I feel the brush of his lashes over my cheek. “That’s it?”

“That’s everything.”

His arms tighten around me. For a moment, just a moment, we can both pretend that’s all that matters. He kisses my nose, my cheek, mouth hovering over mine.

“You’re everything.”

* * *

 

Fjerda will be first.

 _Parem_ is everywhere, and maybe that’s not fair on the ordinary people of Fjerda. Maybe we will ruin any chance our two countries had of peace.

Maybe Fjerda already did that when they started using Grisha the way they have. Saints know Ravka has never been perfect, but there are worse sins than imperfection.

Plus. It’s closer.

There’s a small group of us. It hasn’t been deemed safe for Nikolai, but Zoya is there. Genya, leaning heavily on David and still so lovely it’s hard to look at her. The twins, standing sentinel behind me. That ash remains in the back of my mouth when I look at them, but I can’t order them to go. Not because they bring me comfort, knowing I won’t do this along (although they do, they do), but because I tried. They ignored me.

Some devotion.

And Mal. Mal’s hand in mine, Mal’s warmth next to me, Mal’s voice in my ear. _It’s okay. I love you. I love you._

We walk until I realise they’re all waiting for me to stop. It’s a bit like picking my own grave; I keep that thought to myself.

“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” I admit finally. “I guess here’s as good a place as any.”

Zoya rolls her eyes. it’s a wonder they haven’t fallen out of her head yet. “We’ve come this far. By all means, take us on a trip right into Fjerda.”

“Here’s _fine_ ,” I reiterate, doing my best not to pull a face at her. “Let’s just--”

 _Get this over with_. The words die on my tongue, kind of like I might in a couple of minutes. Mal’s hand is tight around mine. I squeeze it back, and don’t let go as David approaches, vials of refined _parem_ in hand. I’m reminded of another time, another snow scattered night, another object of immense power in this man’s hand, ready to transform and shackle me at the same time.

The look on his face says he’s thinking the same thing. I take pity on him, of a sorts. “Give it to Mal.”

A slow breath shudders beside me. We’d discussed this - he’d _asked_ for this, but I have no idea if it’s going to help him or hurt him.

I don’t want to hurt him. But everything that happens from here on out is going to cause him pain, in one way or another.

 _It’s not too late to back out, Starkov_. It’s not. None of them would begrudge me. There are several Grisha who have done it, and no one looks down on them. No one with a brain, at least.

I’m questioning the status of my own, right now. But David hands the _parem_ to Mal, who takes it with a steady hand. The sickly sweet smell washes over me, and I know. There’s no backing out now.

I turn to the twins. “It’s not too late,” I tell them. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes,” Tamar says easily. “We do.”

Will Nadia ever forgive me? I drag my eyes from Tamar to Tolya, who has no one to leave behind here. We’re all coming with him on this trip.

“It’s a good saint who has a resurrection,” he declares, with a little twitch of his mouth. It’s a smile, I’m pretty sure, but his words are the ones that take my breath away. I want to yell at him, to shake him and scream.

_We made it up. You know we made it up. I’m not a saint and I don’t deserve this devotion._

Maybe I don’t. But I have it anyway. Such is the nature of power.

“Mal,” I say softly. “I’m--”

“Don’t.” He’s just as soft, just as pained. “You don’t have anything to say sorry for.”

It sounds like a lie to me, but I don’t think he means it like one. So I kiss him, because I’ve said everything that has any meaning already, and any more words are only going to make me cry.

The kiss makes me cry, too. He is warmth and he is good and he is home, and here I am volunteering to leave all of that behind. I thought I’d be sure of my choice by now. I thought that I’d only ever do this if I knew for certain it was the right thing to do.

Shows what I get for thinking. Mal presses a vial into my hand, and David and Zoya do the same for the twins, and the time for thinking has passed. The stopper comes out, the scent enough to make my knees buckle now.

Mal steadies me. I shake my head, step away. If this works, things are about to get very, very warm around here.

I lift the vial to my lips; from the corner of my eye, I see Tolya do the same.

Tamar waits. I think of Nadia and I think of Mal, and I think I understand.

The orange liquid coats my tongue on the way down. Stolen _kvas_ comes to mind, but there’s no throwing this one back up as it burns all the way to my gut, and keeps burning. Somewhere very closer and very far away, I hear Tolya’s sharp intake of breath, and I feel--

warm.

It’s not a slow, creeping thing. There’s no preparing for it, no bracing. I am cold and slightly uncomfortable, the mountain chill working its way through my layers of fur, and then I am

not.

_For a moment, all is silent, a held breath - and then everything explodes into white fire. A roar fills my ears, an avalanche of sound that shakes the snow from the trees and makes the very air vibrate._

_I scream as power floods through me, as I burn, consumed from the inside. I am a living star. I am combustion._

I am retribution.

I might not deserve this power. I might have reached for something not mine to grasp, might have opened a door best left shut. Maybe all we have done this day is repeat another desperate Grisha’s mistake, but it is here now. It is within me.

It is me.

* * *

 

_and she is the sun, she is the sun, she is the sun_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the chunk of italicised text above is taken directly from Ruin & Rising for thematic purposes! here's hoping i managed to live up to bardugo's beautiful prose in some way.
> 
> with that said, we're done here. i hope you all enjoyed this fic as much as i enjoyed writing it, and thank you all for reading it <3


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